


Corn Fields

by sentimentalscribe



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Post-Save Chloe Price Ending, Road Trip, i made a road trip fic and added absolutely nothing to the genre except my personal flair, it's been a few months since the Apocalypse it's chill, lots of yearning, pricefield
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:26:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27382651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sentimentalscribe/pseuds/sentimentalscribe
Summary: It's been months since the apocalypse and things are patched up enough for Max and Chloe to drive off into the sunset. Lots of sunset glows, yearning, and banter, with a healthy side of anxiety. Enjoy!
Relationships: Maxine "Max" Caulfield/Chloe Price
Comments: 7
Kudos: 32





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Do you have ANY idea how mad it makes me, a human Polaroid user, to write Max shaking her photos. Do you have any idea. The rage. Life is Strange is a game written extensively about Polaroids that did not bother to do a cursory Google as to any aspect of how using a Polaroid camera in the modern day works. So here I am, writing her shaking pics and having them develop in two seconds like a FOOL, but I know I am a sham. That is all.

“I don’t know if I love anything more than corn fields.”

Chloe looked over at Max in the passenger seat, ready to laugh at that bullshit, but stopped at her expression. Max was leaning back, gazing out the window with such a genuinely peaceful expression that Chloe didn’t know what to do with it.

A pang of some sweet thing hit her stomach at the sight of that chestnut hair, messy from the rolled-down window. The light streaming in from over the distant hills bathed everything from Max’s face to Chloe’s rings to the bobblehead on the dashboard in a surreal golden glow.

Chloe remembered to respond. “Forreal? You like seven hours straight of nowhereville?”

“Well, maybe not seven hours.” Max stretched (adorably, like a kitten), hiking up the band tee she’d borrowed from Chloe and subsequently cut into a mild crop top. The rebel. 

She continued, “I don’t know. I like the gold. There’s a pastoral farmer fantasy there, you know? Living tucked away on a farm somewhere where roosters crow in the morning and I gather my own eggs for breakfast.”

“Am I in there somewhere?” Chloe tried for flirty, but it probably wasn’t working.

“Of course. You’re outside milking the cow.”

“How am I doing?”

“Miserably. You can’t figure out how to make it stay still and end up buying a carton from the store.”

That sent them both into giggles. Chloe glanced over again at Max. “I didn’t know you were into the whole ‘lesbian retiring into the countryside to tend to her chickens in peace’ thing. Who’ll you show your pictures to?”

“The chickens. Obviously.”

Chloe cracked a smile. Also, Max hadn’t commented on the lesbian thing, which produced what the scientists called "anxiety". “And what’ll the pictures be of? The chickens or me?”

“The chickens.”

They devolved into laughter again. Max was quiet for a second, then said, “Well, and you.”

Chloe’s tongue decided to tie up. “Oh?”

“You’ll be the only human model around. I have to have photography resources.” 

Chloe pretended to look affronted, despite Max’s sly smile. How did everything she do manage to feel soft and faded and charming? “You’re a little shit, Miss Caulfield.”

“Look who’s talking.”

“Exactly. As Queen Shit, I think I’m qualified to make the call.”

Max smiled that quiet smile.

They settled back into silence for a while, a soft guitar tune playing from the shitty car speakers that made the sound kind of buzz. Chloe really needed to get that fixed. Busted tail lights and gas tanks she could deal with, but not tinny tunes.

“Yo, Max. Any rest stops coming up? I'm craving Pringles.”

She quickly saw that her words fell on deaf ears. Max was pointing her camera out the front window, leaning forward to get a better shot or something (Chloe had no idea how photography worked) of the rolling hills spread out in front of them. Chloe couldn’t blame her - they were actually pretty beautiful. It felt like spring with all of the green, the wildflowers blooming like they didn’t know what season it was. It filled her with a sort of weird hope in her chest that she couldn't articulate.

More importantly, Max’s squinty face all focused on getting the shot made Chloe realize all over again how much she loved her best friend. She just stared at Max there for a moment, thankfully not driving into a ditch in the process, and watched her.

So this is what it felt like to have someone stay.

Chloe felt tears prick behind her eyes and quickly shook her head to banish them. This definitely wouldn’t jive with her image. She turned back to the road, although there wasn’t much of a need for it. Just empty freeway as far as the crow could see. No wait, it was as far as the eye could see. Where was the crow from? Like the crow flies, she guessed - shit. 

Okay, why couldn’t she stop tearing up? She roughly wiped some random tears away and took a deep breath. Max was still taking that picture and didn’t notice, so no harm, no foul.

Max had stayed even though it meant losing everything.

They had silently agreed not to talk about it, but it was true. Max had seen people die probably a million times, had seen their town destroyed, and still did what she did. Chloe had even begged her to leave her to die, told her that she was ready, and even now she wasn’t sure if she had meant it, but Max had refused to leave her.

It was so shatteringly enormous and strange that she didn’t know how to absorb it. She stopped herself from going down into the self-loathing pit where she knew deep down that she wasn’t worth all of this and instead made herself smile at how goddamn long Max was taking to frame this picture.

She restrained from poking the camera to ruin the shot, less because she was nice and more because Max might have actually kicked her out of the car if she had. She did, however, tap the side of Max’s head a few times and say, “Better be fast, the mountains will move.”

“Shut up.” The corner of Max’s mouth quirked, but she didn’t move her eye from the aiming camera looky thingy. Again, no clue how cameras worked. “Just give me a second.”

After another moment, a bright light flashed and the photo shot out. Max took it and gently shook it - Chloe always loved seeing her do that. She didn’t know why, but it was just always one of those moments that felt cosmically right, like seeing a bird making a nest in a tree and thinking  _ yeah. That’s exactly where you should be. _

Max smiled down at the picture of the hills, the white frame giving them an instantly nostalgic quality. “Love it.”

Chloe couldn’t stop staring at her. She was seriously beautiful when the light was like this. And when seen from the left. To be fair, also from the right. And in the dark. Actually, Chloe was having trouble thinking of a way she wasn’t fucking enchanting.

She swallowed thickly and glanced down at Max’s hand. All of a sudden, not reaching out and taking it was the hardest thing in the world.

_ Fucking shut up, Chloe.  _ This was not the time nor the place, nor the girl nor the reality. She was alive. Max was alive. They were on the road on a beautiful warm day with the countryside to themselves and corn fields lining their way and she was not about to completely ruin everything by being gross and weird. It didn’t matter if just looking at Max made her almost start crying for absolutely no reason again. She could fucking deal.

Max held up the photo to show her. “It doesn’t actually take that long to frame a landscape like this. I just love seeing it so perfect in my viewfinder. Like I’m in the picture. Well, not like… yeah. You know?”

“Viewfinder! That’s what it’s called. Also, yes to whatever philosophical waxing you just did.”

Max shoved her arm (gently, because she had never heard of hitting something like she meant it) and laughed. “You’d like it if you tried.”

“What? Philosophical waxing?”

“Taking things seriously.”

“I take lots of things seriously. Like that shirt, for example. You just went ahead and stole it and cut it up without permission, huh?”

Max blushed. “In my defense, you’ve only ever worn it twice and both times were because you’d let your laundry get so out of hand that you were digging in the back of your closet for something to wear.”

Chloe couldn’t believe there was someone around who knew her this well. It was miraculous. Mir-max-ulous? Nope, definitely glad she hadn’t said that one out loud. 

“You’re lucky I didn’t report you. I’m sure the cops are all over t-shirt theft.”

“What can I say? You’re rubbing off on me.”

It was a joke, but it really was strange to see how much Max had changed just since she’d shown back up in Arcadia Bay. She was slouched in her seat, one leg crossed loosely over the other, and in Chloe’s punk shirt cut haphazardly short and her hair a mess from the wind, she looked like a completely different person than the shy, artsy Max Chloe knew.

That never actually fooled Chloe for a second, though. Everything she did still had that quietness to it, that grace. Like she was always somehow in a faded hoodie in sunset light. It was unexplainable.

“I might take you up on that rest stop, though,” Max said. “Pringles sound good.”

Oh. Chloe had forgotten about food for a second, which really said something. “Sweet.” She switched lanes for the next exit.

“Thank you for using your turn signal,” Max said.

“That was one time!”

“One time without signalling is way too many.”

“You kill me, Caulfield.”

They started to laugh, but then must have remembered the literal implications of that statement. Abrupt silence.

How was it that Chloe’s best friend deciding to save her life instead of killing her for the greater good of an entire town’s population was something conversations could get awkward about now? Like, how was that a thing in her life? Weren’t uncomfortable silences supposed to be about petty high school drama and dumb shit like that?

Of course, the apocalypse wasn’t even the worst thing digging around in the back of her mind. 

Junkyards. Shallow graves. Dark rooms.

She decided to stop thinking. She jerked the steering wheel toward the nearest bright logo off the exit, ignoring Max’s startled noise of protest, and parked in a tiny lot.

Max restated her posture and unbuckled. “I thought you didn’t like Taco Bell.”

Chloe looked up and actually registered where they were. Ugh. 

“Change of heart. C’mon.” She kicked her door open and headed for the neon death trap.

A few minutes later, they walked out of the building armed with burritos and some little things called Cinnabon Delights that they had never tried before but looked interesting.

Chloe tilted her head toward a parking curb like,  _ Wanna sit? _

Max did, so Chloe did, and wouldn’t it have been nice if that were just how life was from now on? Max did, so Chloe did, and Chloe wouldn’t have to make any more decisions or think about anything forevermore. If one of them around here was going to be in charge, it was clear who it should be.

They crossed their legs at the same time and their knees knocked together. Chloe’s breath hitched, but she ignored it. She did not, however, manage to refrain from watching the way Max unwrapped her food and made the wrapper into a placemat. So delicate. Like a goddamn fairy princess of the Taco Bell.

She made herself look away out at the swirling clouds and asked, “How’s your fake Mexican food?”

Max elbowed her. “I don’t like it for the authentic cuisine. It’s just yummy.”

“I’ll have to trust you on that one. I know it’s weird, but I like my food to actually resemble the dish it’s supposed to be.”

Max ignored her and chowed down. Chloe ignored her own burrito still in the wrapper and inspected the Cinnabon Delights. “I’m not sure if these will be the best or worst things I’ve ever tasted. Nothing classy has ever had to remind you that it’s a Delight.”

“Only one way to find out.” Max stole one and popped it in her mouth.

“That’s my little risk-taker!” Chloe grinned at Max’s sheepish smile (filled with pastry) and ruffled her hair. Which was a mistake, because now all she could think about was how much she wanted to touch her hair again. “How is it?”

Max narrowed her eyes as she chewed, expression unreadable. 

Chloe adjusted imaginary glasses and wrote some hurried notes in a notepad (her hand). “It seems she’s using the patented Caulfield method of food tasting, in which she stares off in the distance at a ‘90s-patterned trash can to ponder.”

Max slowly swallowed, then turned to her. “Chloe?”

“Yeah?”

“That was the best thing I’ve ever tasted in my entire life.”

“Woah!” Chloe laughed. “Alright, I need to get in on these!” She ate one herself and just about ascended to the heavens when the cinnamon hit her tongue. “Holy shit. I think I just came.”

Max made a noise of agreement and grabbed the rest of the bag. “The rest are mine, I think.”

“I paid for them!”

“Chloe, you know how I would do anything for you?”

A flurry of images flooded Chloe’s brain: Ruined cities. Crumbling buildings. Bodies in the street.

She snapped back to reality, back to parking curbs in a nameless town that had never heard of Arcadia Bay except maybe recently on their evening news. “Uh. I mean, yeah?”

“Well, that does not extend to giving you these Cinnabons.”

“You little -” Chloe laughed and made a grab for the bag.

Max lifted it above her head, out of Chloe’s reach. “Hey!”

“Those are mi-” Chloe reached up to grab them and accidentally ended up with their faces extremely close. It was extremely important to note that Max had even more freckles than you could see from afar.

She panicked and booped Max’s nose before snatching the bag and running away across the parking lot.

“Chloe!” Max chased after her, burritos forgotten. “I’m sorry, I’ll buy more.”

“Not sorry enough!” She let Max catch up with her near the back door and twirled a villain mustache. “For some deeds cannot be forgiven with mere words!”

Max crossed her arms, even that aggressive action reading as adorable. The sassy posture looked like something she was trying on, just like Chloe’s cut tee. But always grounded in that classic half-smile. “What would earn it, then?”

“Hmm.” Chloe stroked an imaginary beard. Different options popped up in her head, but she surprised herself with, “A dance.”

“What?”

“We haven’t waltzed since we were ten. I want to see if you remember how.”

Max’s new posture lost a bit of that confidence. “I don’t know if I do.”

“Well, don’t tell me that. You’re earning your forgiveness here.” Chloe’s heart pounded as she held up her arms in position. “I’ll lead.”

“Right here?”

“You see a dance floor anywhere?”

Max took a small breath, then stepped forward to join her. “Alright.”

Chloe suddenly remembered that she shouldn’t be trusted to make intelligent decisions, since she definitely hadn’t thought this through and didn’t know what to do with Max this close. 

“Uh, okay. Cool. I don’t really remember which hand goes where for leading or whatever, but we can just -”

“Here.” Max quickly pulled her in and placed an arm on Chloe’s shoulder, taking her hand and pulling it up into dancing position with surprising confidence.

“Oh. Okay, uh.” Chloe tried to act normal and place her other hand on Max’s waist. Her fingers kind of trembled (what a loser), but she managed to do it, and the warmth emanating from Max’s waist through Chloe’s shirt was officially a Lot to deal with.

“I think it’s something like one, two, three…” Max leaned in and stepped back and sideways and all sorts of confusing ways that Chloe’s brain was a little too mushy to follow.

Chloe tried to match the moves, but her feet conspired to make her look like a fucking idiot. “I thought you said you didn’t remember.”

“My feet remember.” Max looked up from the ground and smiled at Chloe. “Remember when we dressed up in those princess costumes your mom bought?”

“And we crashed the royal dance! Yes!” Chloe tripped over her feet, acutely feeling her palms starting to get sweaty. Shit. “Well, actually I remember cutting up that stuff to make pirate sashes for your stuffed animals.”

Max laughed. “Of course. I think I still have some in my garage. The crowns worked great either way, though.”

“Ha. Yeah, multipurpose.” One, two, three, one, two, three. “So, um. Max. Maximus. Maxaroo. How… are you?” Chloe cringed at herself. See, this is why she never did this.

Max’s whole demeanor suddenly quieted. “I’m… Well. I’m dancing with my best friend in a Taco Bell parking lot, and I think that’s about enough right now.”

Chloe nodded. A sudden rush of tears pricked behind her eyes before she blinked them away.

Max looked up at her. “How about you?”

She didn’t respond right away. If she broke down in front of Max, she would run away to fucking Alaska. Then, “Just dancing with my best friend at a Taco Bell.”

Max nodded in return.

Wouldn’t it have been amazing if they had been telling the truth? If this road trip had taken place after graduation in a wild celebration of youth, not post-annihilation of their entire town?

And if Rachel were here?

Chloe suddenly felt sick. “Uh, I want another Cinnabon whatever-they’re-called.”

Max dropped their hands and carefully stepped back. “... Okay. I think there’s a few left.” 

Cold rushed to where Max’s hand had been. They found the bag, abandoned on the sidewalk in the excitement, and settled back down on a curb. Wordlessly, they finished the rest of them, watching the sun start to creep lower on the horizon. The sky turned from a rich blue to a firestorm of oranges and reds that slowly shifted like a molasses blaze.

Long after they had both licked their fingers clean and crumpled up the bag, they stayed there, just watching and being. And at least in Chloe’s case, wondering.

Wondering about the future. Wondering if Blackwell was still standing. Wondering if Rachel had been in pain when she died. Wondering if she would feel this guilt for the rest of her life and wondering how long it would take Max to regret her choice. Wondering how many dead friends on the news would it take to tempt Max into using her powers one last time and fix things. Wondering how she still managed to feel so hopelessly in love with Max even with this entire hopeless shitstorm brewing around them. Wondering if she’d ever understand.

If Max was wondering anything, too, she didn’t say it. The crickets started their chirping as the two watched on. The sun finally disappeared over a row of evergreens, colors fading away until the night was something dark and sapphire and silent. 

After a long time, Max said, “I just realized we didn’t get Pringles.”

“Shit,” Chloe said, not really paying attention. She didn’t look away from where the sun had just been. “Next stop, I promise.”

They didn’t say anything more.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Turns out you can't just pretend away the apocalypse. Whoops.

“Pan-CAKES, pan-CAKES, pan-”

“Chloe, shh!”

Max couldn’t stop herself from giggling. She and Chloe were in the first mom-and-pop diner they could find after miles and miles of fields. It was a new day, fresh and bright, and Chloe was banging her silverware on the table like a child.

“How are they going to know I want pancakes if I don’t tell them, Max? How will I alert them to my deepest of desires?”

“Maybe check the menu first.”

“If this diner built in 19-fucking-52 with a sun wearing sunglasses painted on the wall doesn’t serve pancakes, I’ve officially lost all faith in humanity.”

Max smiled and opened her menu. “I’m thinking strawberry waffles.”

“Smart. We’ll share and achieve optimal breakfast power. Oo, and bacon. I wanna eat some little piggies.”

“Ew.” Max laughed, looking up at Chloe, who was now scouring the pages. She definitely stood out here, all blues and grays and blacks against the pale yellow-orange backdrop, dust particles floating in the sunshine that was streaming through the wall-length windows.

Max made herself look away. She was not about to get caught up staring again and have Chloe make fun of her because she thought she was zoning out. Instead, she got one more good look at that bright-but-fading blue hair halfway covered in the beanie Max loved. She took a picture in her mind.

A waitress came by to take their orders, to which Chloe yelled “PANCAKES” before she was even done talking. Max quietly apologized on her behalf. 

Once they’d ordered and the waitstaff had left, Chloe drummed on the table with her hands. “We gonna get some pannncakesss, it’s gonna be lit. Gonna be a good day, Max-meister.”

Butterflies hit Max’s stomach at every new nickname. No, wait. Butterflies. Bad memories. Change subject. “I think you scared the waitress.”

“She’ll recover. I have a certain wily charm, I’ve been told.”

Max snorted, because yes, she did. “Well, you do the talking, then. I think you ended up with the charm for the both of us.”

Chloe made an error-message face, narrowing her eyes. “That’s not true. You’re -” She shrugged casually, gesturing vaguely with one hand. “You’re like, charming.”

As cute as Chloe was being, Max could only stare down at her hands. Too bony. She stared at a freckle on the back of her wrist as she spoke. “It’s okay. Every duo needs a Plain Jane, right? I fit just fine.”

Something flared in Chloe’s eyes that surprised Max. She looked like she was about to say something genuine, but the spark quickly slipped away and she settled into, “You kidding me? Super Max thinking she’s Lois Lane? No way. As we have well established, I am your humble sidekick.” She did a silly bow at the table.

Max bristled at the name, an itch at her right arm at the mention of it, but she ignored it. What she did focus on, however, was how absolutely adorable Chloe was being. She didn’t know if Chloe actually believed it, but the mere thought of someone like her being second fiddle to Max had always seemed preposterous. She knew what she saw in the mirror. She knew what came with carrying a camera everywhere and barely speaking above a whisper. Powers or not, people like her didn’t have sidekicks. They were lucky if they could find a hero like Chloe to stand in the shadow of.

Chloe sat up quick. “Ooh, do you think I could use some of your strawberry sauce on my pancakes when they come?”

Max blinked herself out of it. “Of course. Well, depends how much there is. Strawberries are the best part.”

“I know. That’s why I want some.” A pause. Chloe picked up a butter knife and absentmindedly twirled it between her fingers. It was entrancing. “Hey… it would be stupid to say something right now, right?”

Max snapped her gaze back to Chloe’s face. “What?”

Chloe stopped messing with the knife and looked down. “I - never mind. Think this place has a jukebox?”

“You already checked, remember? It doesn’t.” Max studied her cautiously, but said nothing more.

“Damn. Sons of bitches don’t know how to let a gal get her Elvis on.” Chloe stretched and leaned back in her booth, propping her hands behind her head with an easiness Max couldn’t be sure was convincing.

However, it was a nice opportunity to remember how much she loved Chloe’s lankiness. She looked like a lazy cat in the sun. Well, maybe more of a lazy cat who’d recently returned from a punk concert and bathed in leather.

After a while of mostly comfortable silence (Chloe colored on a kid’s menu with crayons she’d stolen from a basket by the door), their food arrived.

Chloe dramatically bowed to the waitress in gratitude. “Thank you, O Holy One, for the pancakes that shall nourish my soul.” She grabbed the plate off the tray before they could even hand it over, much to the chagrin of the waitress, and slammed it on her side of the table. 

Max quietly apologized again and waited for the waitress to hand over her waffles.

Chloe devoured her pancakes in mere minutes and stole one of Max’s waffles. Max took Chloe’s extra bacon to make it even.

Max didn’t talk much. The occasional comment about the strawberry sauce was about all she needed, as Chloe seemed perfectly happy to talk with her mouth full about just about anything.

Max did a mental inventory check to see if Chloe had ingested more caffeine than she should have that day. Maybe she’d snuck an extra redbull when the two of them had made a 3 a.m. gas station hit to stay awake. They had yet to sleep. 

Maybe she would convince Chloe to blow some of their cash on a daytime motel sleeptime. She added the mental note and felt a rush of warmth through her chest. She liked planning their days together, liked being able to file through her memory to see what Chloe had been doing at three in the morning. She wanted to keep it going.

They paid the bill to a now-wary waitress. Chloe acted like it was something chivalrous that she was covering the bill, despite them having a joint account for all means and purposes until… whatever was next for them. Still, Max laughed at the pageantry of Chloe’s exaggerations and humored her until they settled back into the car.

Back on the road. The world slowly woke up around them, thick evergreens lining the road with birdsong audible over the mellow guitar music Max had negotiated for. It was Chloe’s turn to drive and even she seemed to be paying the scenery attention.

“Max. Take a picture of those trees.”

Max looked at her like _what?_ “Trees are everywhere.”

“I know, I don’t know how to describe it - see those?” Chloe pointed in the distance, to a place where the rising sun dripped over the peaks of the evergreens like a candied glaze.

Max’s breath caught. She pulled out her camera, praying the flash wouldn’t reflect back at herself from shooting into the car windshield, and snapped a pic.

It spat out and Max reflexively shook the square. She said, “Thanks, scout. You’ve never been my eyes like that before.”

Chloe smiled, but it didn’t fully meet her eyes. She shrugged. “What can I say? You made an artist of me.” Her eyes tracked back and forth as if she had more to say.

“Hm.” Max could tell Chloe was thinking about something, but she interrupted, “That’s sweet.” She only half-looked at Chloe. She didn’t entirely want to gauge her reaction.

Chloe coughed and didn’t say anything right away. Then, “How is it?”

“What?”

“The picture.”

“Oh!” Max gave it one more shake and held it up to the light. “Oh, wow.” The picture didn’t capture the actual scene played out in front of her, but the camera had turned it into something else entirely. Something new and beautiful. 

The yellow-pinkness of the sky had changed to a uniform peach, the light on the treetops a sort of glistening effect. The film actually busted in a few places, creating tiny white fireworks of film error that burst like invisible sparks in the sky.

She showed Chloe. Who was driving, but it wasn’t like she was the most dedicated to watching the road in the first place.

Chloe stared for a good moment before looking up at Max. “That’s so fucking cool.”

“I love it.” Max took the picture back and smiled down at it. Up out the window, she could still see those trees, much closer in her view than they were before. The light had changed since then, but she rolled down the window and took another picture from there, doing it too quickly to worry about whether she should have held her camera so close to the open window.

“Woah! We got a speed demon on our hands!”

Max grinned, ducking her head to shake the new photo. “Photography is all about getting those angles, Miss Price.”

Immediately even the joking concept of a photography teacher made her stomach turn, so she cleared her mental palette by looking back out at the gorgeous window, Which, of course, turned into looking over at Chloe.

Sunrise really suited her. Max was sure Chloe would much rather have been a natural in the nighttime, one of those people who carried a moonlit glow meant to prowl in dark alleyways, but she really just wasn’t. She could fake it, but here was where she was meant to be: the first rays of a new day splashed on her skin, a yawn on her lips from double-Redbull Band-aid measures, driving into the sleepy, hesitant sun on a highway that never ended. 

Max raised her camera again without saying anything. She framed Chloe’s profile there, then adjusted for parallax and snapped it before Chloe could notice and object.

The bright flash gave her away, of course. 

Chloe yelped, “The fuck? Trying to blind me?” She saw the camera. “That better not have been of me before I’ve seen a mirror all day.”

“You didn’t have a problem going out to breakfast like that.” Max smirked as she shook the photo.

“Some shitty diner doesn’t get to see Peak Chloe. They would faint on sight.”

“But my camera needs to?”

“Well -” Just a twinge of red touched Chloe’s face and she scowled. “You keep those things forever.”

The picture had developed by then. Max smiled at it. Chloe, framed perfectly with messy hair and eye bags, lit by the sunrise and one hundred percent getting stashed in Max’s keepsake collection as soon as she could. “You look wonderful,” Max said, and hid it under the others on her lap without showing her.

Chloe double-taked at her, then kept double-taking because she couldn’t look away from the road for that long, and said, “Max! Let me see.”

“No.”

“I need to have legal signoff on all evidence of me that goes out into the world! It’s the law.”

Max scoffed. “It’s really not.”

“I look like a fucking wreck, don’t I?”

Max stared at her with the energy of an eye roll. “You know I wouldn’t think that.”

“Why would I know that?”

Max thought of a few things to say, but hesitantly landed on, “I always think you look nice.”

Chloe glanced at her. “Aw. Well uh, thanks, pirate. You look nice, too. For someone who hasn’t seen a hairbrush in eighteen hours.”

“You’re one to talk.”

“You said I looked amazing!”

“Don’t know if I said that.”

Chloe made one more wild grab for the photo before giving up. She was probably going to try and smuggle it out of Max’s bags later. 

The drive went on for an unknowable amount of time like this, in and out of talking and appreciating the scenery, and Max never once grew tired of being with her best friend there, like this, away from everything. So easy to forget there was even an ‘everything’ to get away from.

She looked down at the pictures on her lap. Some part of her found comfort in that if something went horribly wrong, she would have these moments in time to return to if need be. 

Even though - no, that wasn’t an option anymore. And it never would be again.

She would have these moments to return to through her own memory and nothing more. Metaphor only.

But rolling down the highway, the day’s full sun finally starting to shine above them, holding those moments felt like enough. 

-

It was midday, afternoon, who really knew or cared. All that mattered was Max was ready to pass out, and Chloe in the passenger seat wasn’t doing too much better. They’d managed to google their way into finding an absurdly cheap motel that would let them register as one guest as long as they split a bed, which, no big. 

Max gratefully pulled into the parking lot of this place, which honestly wasn’t as gross as it could have been. A few other people milled about the yellow-orange buildings, but none of them seemed like the type to gut her in an alley, or as Chloe might have called them, “friend material”.

They were both so tired from the inadvisable driving allnighter that they all but sleepwalked through checking in and lugging all their stealable things upstairs into their room. Max barely registered the room’s interior before falling onto the bed face-first to sleep. Chloe practically landed on top of her doing the same, and they slept until the sun was on the other side of the room.

Max woke to Chloe’s elbow stabbing her in the throat, which was confusing more than painful. She blinked sleep away and squinted, trying to make out their situation. Both of them were somehow on top of and under one another, which was an impressive accomplishment, but the pretzel didn’t lend itself to five star rest and Max was sore all over.

She gently moved Chloe’s arm off herself and extracted her leg from under Chloe’s. The sun was setting in the window and the room was cast in an almost bloody red, and Max suddenly didn’t want to be there, or in this bed, or next to Chloe or anyone at all. She rolled off the bed and her feet hit the floor with a violent thud and she checked behind her to make sure Chloe hadn’t woken up.

Chloe. Rebellious even in sleep, her body sprawled sideways at chaotic angles, and black band tank top pulled halfway down her arm so her sports bra showed. She looked as peaceful as Max had seen her.

But Max had been looking for a good few seconds now, and she hadn’t seen Chloe breathe. Oh no. Oh god. What if -

Out of panic, she reached forward and shook her arm. “Chloe?”

“Motherfuck - I didn’t do it!” Chloe yelled before even opening her eyes. She sprang up, almost headbutting Max.

“Woah, there, partner.” Max stepped back, heartbeat slowing slightly. She didn’t want to admit all the things she thought might have happened, all of them somehow her fault.

Chloe got her bearings, then stretched, lanky as ever. “Ah, hello, Max-meister. How long did we sleep?”

Max was glad she didn’t have to cover. “I don’t know. I think it makes more sense to stay here through the night, though. We already paid for it.”

“Alright,” Chloe said, and flopped forward on her stomach.

She propped her chin on her hand, looking up at Max, and the light of the motel room sunset fell on her face in red glowing lines and Max almost flinched with the slap in the face that was remembering how in love she was with her best friend, who by all accounts should have been dead. Whom she’d probably killed some other people to keep safe. She hadn’t watched the news yet. She didn’t know how bad the storm had gotten, how many hadn’t made it.

Max clenched her jaw and looked away. Now that Chloe was safe for sure,her relief turned to unexplained bitterness. She walked over to where they’d dumped their luggage to have something different to look at than blue hair and the sleepy smile only Max got to see. 

The bags had crushed their leftover chips in their sleepy entrance to the room, leaving crumbs all along the entryway. Max’s first thought was wondering if it was recent enough for her to rewind and -

No. She would just have to find a way to clean it up before they left.

Behind her on the bed, Chloe said, “Pass me the 420?”

Max turned around, hoping to see a joking smile over there. When there wasn’t, she put a hand on her hip and said, “This is a non-smoking room.”

“Oh, yes, teacher, let’s start following the rules now.” Chloe rolled her eyes. “I don’t know how to tell you this, my dear, but we’re not exactly model students.”

Max was not in the mood to hear pet names. Maybe it was how she’d woken up, maybe it was finally sleeping inside after being on the road so long, but reality was sneaking back up her spine. And it didn’t discern between the cutting glass of what had happened in Arcadia Bay and the looming dread of her feelings for the person regrettably sharing a bed with her.

“Outside,” she said. “Come on.”

Chloe grumbled, but rolled off the bed and followed Max to the doorway.

“It’s cold,” Chloe complained.

“Borrow a flannel.” Max grabbed the weed bag from Chloe’s duffel and put her shoes on, careful to face away from her as she laced up.

“Borrow? These used to be mine.”

“Congratulations. They’ll all fit.” Max made for the door and trusted Chloe would follow.

Chloe closed it behind them and they made their way around the back of the buildings. Max generally wouldn’t have felt super safe hanging out behind cheap motels, but at this point she trusted Chloe’s ability to frighten thugs off. And she herself had literally fired shots at a drug dealer in a junkyard and fought her way out of a kidnapper’s den, so she was pretty much done with it all.

There was a big clearing in the middle of a bunch of bushes, so they set up camp there wordlessly. Chloe laid down, propping a hand behind her head and folding her knees up, which Max matched.

Chloe made a _gimme_ gesture. “Nuggets, please.” 

Max managed a laugh at that as she handed them over. “I don’t think they’ll give these to you at McDonalds.”

“Hey, if you’re real good friends with the manager, anything’s possible.” She took the baggie and got to work. Once she’d set herself up, she turned her head to Max, which sent a jolt of either fear or joy through her. She’d positioned them way too close together.

Max was so stressed and irritable, a hit would probably be a good idea. She nodded and held up her hand to take the joint Chloe had rolled just for her. So chivalrous.

It was some weird strain Chloe had gotten from whatever new friends she had made to replace Frank, and that brought up another host of unwelcome memories, so Max sucked it in hard in the hopes of drowning them out.

She looked up at the night sky and desperately waited for a high to make her stop imagining the emergency vehicles, the crumbled buildings, the body bags. Because all of them were so loud at the moment, and maybe they always would be, but not right now, please. Come on, Mary Jane.

Chloe was chatting to the air about how she was going to have to get crafty to find more weed on the open road, but Max stared straight at the sunset sky until she felt some semblance of a high.

Finally the colors in the sky seemed to swirl a little more interestingly and Chloe’s words were a little louder in her ears and she finally felt relaxed enough to take a deep breath and try to let it go.

“... and there were these guys I met who bought a shitton in Colarado and they sold it to other people on their road trip, which we could do if we just head over there,” Chloe finished.

Max cracked a smile. Colorado was a funny word.

“Why doesn’t every word sound like that?” Max asked, happy to be thinking of other things.

“What?”

“Colorado. Coloradoooo.” She giggled.

“Jesus, I forgot you’re a lightweight.” But Chloe’s usual bite was gone, so Max figured she was more or less the same.

Max smiled. It was a nice feeling. She liked smiling. She took another drag.

Chloe shifted next to her. “Should I start painting?”

“There’s no paint here. It’s just bushes.”

“No, fucker, like... “ She thought about it. “In real life.”

“Is this not real life?”

“In the daytime.”

Max tried to remember what they were talking about. “Why?”

“You have a camera, and I think it would be sexy if I had a thing, too.”

Max laughed. “You think cameras are sexy? They’re squares.”

“Mother fuckin’ mary.” Chloe turned her head so their noses were close to touching. She took another hit with a wry smile and blew smoke in Max’s face. “You get silly high, huh?”

“You’re silly.”

“I’m not silly. I’m…” She crinkled her nose in thought and it was the cutest thing Max had ever seen in her life. Bunny-rabbit on Easter levels of cute. “Mean.”

Max laughed very hard at that.

Maybe getting high to avoid her problems hadn’t worked entirely, because now there was really nothing stopping her from staring at Chloe, alone out here under all these colors, and starting an exhaustive mental catalogue of every little thing there was to love about her. Number one: Nose.

Max reached up and poked Chloe’s nose, giggling.

Chloe scrunched her face and pulled away. “Hey, what’s the big idea?”

“You have an excellent nose. Very boopable. Ten out of ten.”

That got Chloe to smile, lazy and happy, and she poked Max’s nose back. “Huzzah.”

“Huzzah? What are we, royalty?” That was extremely funny, so naturally Max laughed about it at length.

“No. Just you. You’re like some… princess or duchess or shit. I’m just the, uh, bell dude.”

“What? Noo.” Max pouted. “You have to be a princess too.”

“They’re not getting me in a dress!” Chloe raised a triumphant fist.

“Not all princesses wear dresses,” Max said, but she wasn’t really listening to herself. She absolutely, positively could not go another second without being closer to Chloe. She was just sitting there! Uncuddled! Unkissed! A crime!

Max did have the good sense, though, to hold back from just pouncing on her, because she wisely reasoned that simply kissing Chloe with years of pent-up emotion and angst while high would be a bad idea in the largest sense. But she did take advantage of her best friend powers to roll so she was laying belly-first on Chloe, holding herself up with her elbows. Which, now that she did it, made the “don’t kiss Chloe” part of the plan very hard, because she was exquisitely warm and her hair on the pavement was like a Van Gogh and her face was surprised and cute a mere inches away.

“I’m a tiger. I beat you,” Max said, and laughed more.

Chloe, rather than playing along like Max expected, froze in place. She was quiet for a second, then said, “You have so many freckles. How did they all get there?”

Max burst into giggles, and so did Chloe, and everything was okay until Max hugged her and said without thinking, “It’s so cool that you’re not dead.”

As soon as she said it, an internal record scratched hard. Suddenly Chloe’s warmth in her arms was scary, and she dropped it and rolled off her.

“Sorry,” she said.

Chloe didn’t move, her eyes trained on the sky. “It’s fine. I’m glad I’m not dead, too.”

Max exhaled in relief. “And I’m glad I’m not dead! We’re all glad.”

A moment. The sky grew darker, casting shadows from the bushes over their bodies.

“Rachel would have liked this whole trip, right?”

Max suddenly wanted to cry, but she tried to separate chemical from real. “I’m sure.”

“The flannel you stole wasn’t mine, it was hers. I just don’t say that shit half the time because it’s a downer.” Chloe did a little dance with her hands to emphasize.

“I bet she knew how to paint,” Max said, and she didn’t know if she meant it to be nice or mean, but the sky was distracting her with its new blue-black sparkliness. Her eyelids grew heavy.

“She didn’t. She was shit at it.”

Max couldn’t help laughing. But then Chloe did, too, and things were kind of okay, but were they really, and would anything ever be okay if she couldn’t even escape the body counts halfway across the country?

Max’s chin dipped a few times trying to stay awake. All of a sudden, all she needed was a warm bed and a burger. “‘M sleepy.”

“What? You’re barely high.”

“Oh, okay. I’ll stop being sleepy.” Max laughed, eyes shut. She could hear everything now. Her breathing. Chloe’s. The sky’s.

“Well, I wanna chill out here, so you can sleep wherever. I’ll put on some baking tunes.”

“You won’t tuck me in? I need a hug.” Max didn’t open her eyes, but smiled.

Chloe made some sort of sound, and then a scuffling noise like she was getting up. A sudden, paranoid weed thought struck that Chloe had transformed into a monster and was about to kill her, so Max opened her eyes in a flash, but Chloe had just sat up and taken off her flannel. Well, Rachel’s.

“Here, Sleeping Beauty,” Chloe said, and draped it over Max.

Max was so tired she closed her eyes again. “My prince. See, no dresses.” She laughed one more time for good measure, dimly taking in Chloe’s faint squeeze of her hand, before falling into a wildly chemical sleep.

She had vivid dreams full of neon colors that burned off as soon as she woke up later in the pitch black, feeling horribly real-life again.

Her first thought was that she was in hell. Then she felt concrete under her and a flannel draped over her. Her eyes adjusted to the bushes and another person she could only assume to be Chloe sitting up. Punk or grunge or whatever subgenre it was played at mid-volume from a phone speaker. 

Chloe looked over. “You’re up.” Her voice was flat.

Max sat up, her high mostly gone. “What time is it?”

“Been out here for a while. You looked peaceful.”

“Had weird dreams.” Max shook her head like that would shake them off.

“Hmph.”

Max looked at Chloe. Her posture was stiff. She was hunched over her knee and turning the same used blunt over and over in her hand.

“Do you want to go inside?” Max ventured.

“Why didn’t you let me die?”

The words shot out. They stuck in Max’s chest like shrapnel.

Max didn’t answer, mostly not for knowing what she would even say, hoping Chloe would say something else and let her off the hook. 

Chloe did no such thing. Her silence was a blunt instrument.

“I - I don’t know.” Max did know. She knew so very clearly, but it wasn’t anything she could say and save face, much less sound like a normal human being with normal priorities.

“People died. Real people we probably knew. I saw it on the news.”

It was only then that Max saw what was in Chloe’s other hand: her phone, turned on to the Arcadia Bay local news site.

“Chloe, don’t look at the news.” Panic rose in Max’s throat. She didn’t want to know the death count. She didn’t want to hear any more about it than she already knew. 

She stood up unsteadily. “Put that away. Just come inside with me.”

To her surprise, Chloe did. They gathered up their stuff and moved back to the motel, Chloe staying uncharacteristically silent and bumping the door open with her hip after she unlocked it.

When the door clicked shut behind them, it was like a pin dropping.

Chloe had gone over to their bag and was rooting around for something, not looking at Max.

Max sat on the bed and tried, “Any snacks?”

“Here.” Chloe threw Max a mini bag of Cheez-its they’d scrounged up on a gas run.

Max caught it, realized she wasn’t actually hungry, and waited for Chloe to be done so they could talk face to face.

When it became clear Chloe’s plan was to keep searching in the bag forever, Max broke the silence.

“I would do it again, you know. You don’t have to worry about that.”

Chloe looked up, and Max could see now why she’d been hiding her face. There weren’t tears, but it was red with anger, which Max knew was Chloe’s pre-cry face. All Max wanted was to grab her and hold her until it went away.

“Why?” Chloe asked, one word to tear Max apart.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Max lied.

“I’m five-foot-who-cares of bones. I know I’m an asshole. You’ve left me before. I just don’t get it.”

Max flinched at the acknowledgement of Seattle. She hated herself for leaving Chloe when she needed her. It kept her up at night. Yeah, they’d been kids, but who gave her the right?

Chloe looked at her from across the room. Those eyes Max had memorized ever since they were little. That hair that had surprised her so much when she first came back to Arcadia Bay, but suited her so well, hanging in front of her face in a way that begged Max to imagine brushing it aside.

She couldn’t help it that the thoughts popped up every time she looked at her best friend. She couldn’t help the pang in her chest when she let herself daydream about something more, about her hands on Chloe’s smooth skin for longer than a hug, and she knew every time she did it that she could never say it out loud.

But times like this, when they were alone there in a motel in the middle of nowhere, the night gaining on them and Chloe’s face flickering between darkness and light from the shoddy lights above, they made it so much more difficult.

Looking at her now, at that expression like she was waiting for Max to say something devastating, made her give in, just a little. 

There were a few options in her head, but she went with, “I care about you. Okay? That’s all there is to say.”

She hoped it would be enough.

But Chloe said, “Bullshit. You’re a good person. You care about the rest of those assholes, too.”

“Those assholes aren’t my best friend.” Max looked her in the eye, daring her to challenge her bullshit further. “Can we drop it? I wanted to have a nice night.”

“I bet all the people down there wanted to have a nice night, too.”

Max stood up, red-hot anger suddenly popping up to mask her guilt. “Stop it. If you feel bad, you don’t have to take it out on me.”

Chloe wouldn’t meet her eye. “Yeah, I’m sure the town will care if I feel bad.”

“Chloe.” Max wanted to strangle her. “I did this for you, okay? It’s done. I choose you. I chose you.”

“Some choice.” Chloe narrowed her eyes. “Real fuckin’ swell, Max. It’s all still my fault, though, right?”

“I’ve never said that.”

“It doesn’t matter. You look at me sometimes and… I know you hate me, deep down. Maybe it’ll take you longer to figure it out.”

“What?” Max didn’t even know what to say to that.

“Except the next time you leave me, it’ll hurt a hell of a lot more. Because that time, you’ll know you chose wrong.”

Max gaped. She couldn’t believe this is who she had sacrificed a small town to save. She couldn’t believe this petulant, childish, asshole was who she had chosen over everything. She couldn’t believe that she knew she would do it again, and she would do it a million times, and who was she other than a horrible, wretched person for knowing that? Who was she to be there with the tragic love of her life, alive and well, a trail of wreckage leading up to her lovesick teenage bullshit?

“I don’t hate you. Where would you even - Chloe!”

Chloe had gotten up to put on her coat. Max followed her and grabbed the coat from her hands before she could put it on.

“Chloe, please stay.”

Chloe snarled. “Give me that.”

“No. Talk to me.”

“I did. You didn’t like it.” She grabbed for the coat.

Max held it back. “Listen to me. Please.”

Chloe stopped and put a hand on her hip, waiting. Her face was pre-cry red again, Max noticed. Even after all of this, she still wanted to reach out and touch her face.

Max realized she didn’t have anything to say. Everything she really wanted to say was behind lock and key. 

She didn’t want this. She didn’t want to be there, alone, with nothing but her feelings and her guilt eating at her heels as she ran from it across the country on a road trip that felt more like running away. She didn’t want to feel this way about her best friend, didn’t want the trail of bodies that would follow them for the rest of their lives.

Didn’t want the way Chloe was looking at her, like she was pleading for something Max couldn’t give.

Max choked. She had done so much to keep the incredible, fiery girl in front of her alive. To stay with Max. Anything to get Chloe to stay.

“I’m in love with you,” Max said, and that was that.

Chloe’s hand dropped from her waist. Her face was blank, the argument forgotten.

The world imploded. Max wished she could swallow her own tongue. What had she done? What was she going to do?

“Are you messing with me?” Chloe asked.

Max was trembling. She shook her head.

Chloe stared at her and Max would have given everything she’d ever had to know what was going on in her head. She considered using her rewind one last time.

Then Chloe was kissing her before she knew what was happening.

Max inhaled in surprise, not processing what was going on, before she caught on and started kissing back out of instinct. She reached out to take the back of Chloe’s neck in her hand, her fingers brushing blue hair, and she had to have still been high from earlier because she was floating off the floor.

Max never would have pulled away, but eventually Chloe did.

Max had kissed Chloe before, as a joke, but that had done nothing to prepare her for the swooping feeling in her stomach she got when she saw Chloe’s eyes so close to hers. This couldn’t have been happening.

Chloe, the most beautiful being in the universe, regarded her. “Fuck.”

“Yeah,” Max agreed.

“And - are you sure?”

Max laughed. “I’m sure.”

“Wow. I’ve wasted a lot of time.”

Max went red down to her toes at that. Chloe feeling the same way was something that could only happen in an alternate dimension, she’d thought. Much less that she might have felt that way for a long time. Max couldn’t process it.

All she could do was smile weakly and laugh.

“I choose you,” Max said, and she hoped this time Chloe would hear it.

Chloe looked at her like she was some sort of answer. Max felt more like a question.

But what she did know was right in front of her. No matter what came.

She reached up to touch Chloe’s face. 

“I will always choose you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I really deeply appreciate kudos, comments, and bookmarks and eat them like food, so if you enjoyed, go ahead and feed me so I can finally rest. I also write solangelo, catradora, fierrochase, and some other stuff, so check that out if you wanna be cool.
> 
> Have a nice evening!
> 
> twitter: sentimentalscr1  
> tumblr: sentimentalscribe

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I would really appreciate any kudos or comments(!!) you could dish my way in these trying times. This will probably be a 2-parter, so stay tuned by bookmarking or whatever the kids do. Until then, be nice to yourself, and if you like solangelo, catradora, or whatever else you can check out my other stuff!
> 
> twitter: sentimentalscr1  
> tumblr: sentimentalscribe


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